This study aims to reveal the value of Nara Juvenile Prison other than the important cultural property architecture. Nara Juvenile Prison was established in 1908 as one of the five Meiji prisons and was renamed Nara Juvenile Prison in 1946. It is a special facility that has been used at the same site for 109 years until it closed in 2017. Furthermore, in 2017, the Nara Prison Building, which was built in the Meiji era, was designated as an important cultural property, and other parts have been demolished, and it is currently being renovated as an accommodation facility. The prison architecture as a cultural property building tends to attract attention, but it is important to evaluate the architecture, including the juvenile prison era, which occupied 70 years of the 109-year history. From the perspective of “school”, we have investigated the adaptation process of the school-like activities and spaces in the prison architecture through literature surveys, field surveys and hearings. This research deals with the rare case of prison architecture, and is highly unique in the following points. One is that we were able to understand the actual condition of Nara Juvenile Prison through a survey just after the closure, and the other is that we can understand the relationship between prison function and space by referring to the field of law. The following is a summary of each chapter.
In Chapter 2, we organized general juvenile prisons based on the Ministry of Justice literature. And as a representative of general juvenile prisons, we conducted a field survey at the Kawagoe Juvenile Prison to understand the relation between activities and spaces. Chapter 3 clarified the history, land transition, and floor plans of Nara Juvenile Prison, and showed that it was a special facility that changed from prison architecture to juvenile prison. It revealed that the Nara Juvenile Prison provided superior educational guidance compared to other juvenile prisons and that the prison function was adapted in relation to the local community. Chapter 4 clarified in detail the actual usage inside and outside the prison through an interview survey. The target of the survey was 12 persons including those involved such as Former instructor, Former prison officer, Former volunteer counselor and local residents. The results obtained in the previous chapters were put together to present the multi-layered value of Nara Juvenile Prison.
As a result, we could find the school-like activities in many spaces that were not designated as the important cultural properties and depict the formation of the environment and the detailed spatial composition connected with the activities, which are valuable materials. The prison architecture had spaces that could flexibly respond to "school-like" activities and its unique environment was related to its treatment based on the educational philosophy from 1946, its spatial configuration that was not seen in prisons after the end of the Taisho-era, its location on a hill in Nara City, the fact that Juvenile inmates were mostly first-time offenders, and security was good, and its acceptance by the local community.
